FlyingAccountant
Well-Known Member
DEVGRU went in and recovered two bodies and some of the technology. Two bodies seems to suggest no one other than the pilot(s)/operators were onboard at the time.
If you ever get a chance and are at BAF you should go meet and talk to those guys about what they really can/can’t do that isn’t in the standard power point briefs we all see on sharedrives. It is a very odd mix of 1950s and 23rd century technology and a whole lot of weird added on items in between.
At the point of the dual engine out emergency, the MA’s position was approximately 38 nautical miles (NM) from Bagram Airfield, 17 NM from Kabul International Airport, 28 NM from Forward Operating Base (FOB) Shank, and 230 NM from KAF
Wow so they shut down the wrong engine and did so super fast (24 sec after failure) and then decided to glide to the furthest airport. Huh?
Wow so they shut down the wrong engine and did so super fast (24 sec after failure) and then decided to glide to the furthest airport. Huh?
*flat, hostile stare*AF accident report is out.
Short summary: they had a left engine (fan blade loss) failure at altitude, misdiagnosed which engine failed, and shut down the right engine. They then could not get either engine restarted and landed off-field, hitting some dirt berm type structures on the ground leading to break-up and fire. Sad.
Yeah. Nope.OMG. Doing all that at altitude?! Wtf. Why?!
Even that being so, they were only 17 miles from Kabul and 38 from Bagram. This all happened at 43,000 ft so even with a 2/1 glide ratio (being generous) they shoulda been able to glide 80+ miles. Maybe it's just me, but after Sully plopped it into the Hudson glide is something that I think about more than before. Sometimes the closest airport may be behind you.Kabul and BAF both would have serious barriers
Even that being so, they were only 17 miles from Kabul and 38 from Bagram. This all happened at 43,000 ft so even with a 2/1 glide ratio (being generous) they shoulda been able to glide 80+ miles. Maybe it's just me, but after Sully plopped it into the Hudson glide is something that I think about more than before. Sometimes the closest airport may be behind you.
How does the military train engine out procedures? Are they done from memory or checklist and is identify/verify a thing?Most of the peaks around that area start at 14k.
Most of the peaks around that area start at 14k.
Wide left turn for Shank would be the same, you’d have to first cross the barrier segmenting the valley for highway 1, no issue from altitude... but then you get to perform a lineup on Shank (now Dalke) which sits in a bowl surrounded by more peaks, particularly if they lined it up for a south to north straight in because 13k will barely clear the power lines in that valley.
The terrain to their north is also far more undulating even where it isn’t straight mountains and slopes up from where they were to get to BAF/Kabul. There are far fewer options to ditch out there and way more stuff (towers and the like) to hit. Remember in this part of the country every house has an 8 foot Adobe wall built surrounding the property and they are everywhere up there. It’s not the vast desolate nothing of the western Helmand or places down south.
If anything attempting a restart on the path they were flying was a fast evaluation of staying over the lowest ground possible with also the opportunity to land on the one good flat straight road in the region if it didn’t work out. That not working and heading lower and lower while pouting into the airborne valley (not a fun place) it looks like they made the call to try for Sharana (old Soviet field sits at 7500’, slopes up severely to the east, and isn’t occupied) and no longer had the reach to get it.
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How does the military train engine out procedures? Are they done from memory or checklist and is identify/verify a thing?
Even that being so, they were only 17 miles from Kabul and 38 from Bagram. This all happened at 43,000 ft so even with a 2/1 glide ratio (being generous) they shoulda been able to glide 80+ miles. Maybe it's just me, but after Sully plopped it into the Hudson glide is something that I think about more than before. Sometimes the closest airport may be behind you.
Kam Air 904, the 737, ended up impacted at 11K elevation in the mountains east of Kabul 16 years ago. That was one tough rescue/recovery operation.
For flights in the area NE and E of the bowl there, we had to be reminded that if we have to bailout of our jet at any time over there, we had to immediately manually initiate seat-man separation and deploy our chutes, otherwise we’d impact the terrain, since the ejection seat is waiting to sense 14K +/- 1K MSL, and it has no idea what it’s AGL is.
When Ariana started domestic air service in Kabul in the mid 1960s with DC3’s, they’d climb to 19,000 temporarily to get over ridges and descend back down. My dad and uncle were part of the program that pan am started up. My dad passed away 18 months ago so I came up to sfo to have dinner with my uncle last night. He was telling me some wild stories of the way things were back then. He and my dad were fresh co pilots in the DC3, with Pan Am captains training them on the line for 2 years.Even that being so, they were only 17 miles from Kabul and 38 from Bagram. This all happened at 43,000 ft so even with a 2/1 glide ratio (being generous) they shoulda been able to glide 80+ miles. Maybe it's just me, but after Sully plopped it into the Hudson glide is something that I think about more than before. Sometimes the closest airport may be behind you.
Funny you mentioned that.When Ariana started domestic air service in Kabul in the mid 1960s with DC3’s, they’d climb to 19,000 temporarily to get over ridges and descend back down. My dad and uncle were part of the program that pan am started up. My dad passed away 18 months ago so I came up to sfo to have dinner with my uncle last night. He was telling me some wild stories of the way things were back then. He and my dad were fresh co pilots in the DC3, with Pan Am captains training them on the line for 2 years.
I can just imagine Pan Am sending out letters to its pilots offering this TDY to Kabul. Lmao